Ihsahn (born October 10, 1975 as Vegard Sverre Tveitan) is a Norwegian composer, guitar, bass, keyboard player and vocalist. He is best known for his work with Norwegian black metal band Emperor. He has appeared in Thou Shalt Suffer, up until March 4, 2006, played in Peccatum with his wife Ihriel (real name Heidi S. Tveitan), and now devotes himself to his solo project, Ihsahn. In his very early releases, he went by the name Ygg. He is currently endorsed by Ibanez and Blackstar Amplification, as of April 9, 2010.

Biography

Born in the town of Notodden, Norway Tveitan began playing piano at seven and guitar at ten and began recording songs shortly thereafter. His influences range from heavy metal, classical, ambient, and techno. He grew up on a large farm in rural Norway.

Tveitan first met his musical partner, Tomas Haugen (also known as Samoth) at the age of thirteen at a music seminar. Tveitan gained Haugen's attention with his Iron Maiden patches. In 1990 Tveitan joined Haugen's band Xerasia. This was a death metal band where Tveitan was guitarist and keyboardist. At some point that year, they changed their name to Embryonic. A four track demo titled The Land of the Lost Souls was self financed and released in November. In 1991 they changed their name to Thou Shalt Suffer. They produced several releases before Haugen left the band. Tveitan was left as the only member of the band and continues it to this day as a side-project.
After the departure of Haugen from Thou Shalt Suffer, the two formed Emperor where Tveitan again played guitar. Emperor had a much more refined black metal sound which showcased Tveitan's developing keyboard sound, a distinct feature that would appear in his later releases. The band at this time received much support and encouragement from black metal pioneer Euronymous and after several demos, the Emperor EP was released in 1993 to much acclaim.
Shortly thereafter, bandmates Haugen, Bård Eithun (also known as Faust) and Terje Schei (also known as Tchort) were arrested and imprisoned leaving Tveitan to his own devices. He retreated to a property owned by his family to compose much of what would later become Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, which was recorded after the parole of Haugen.
In 1995 the cult album Blood Must be Shed from Zyklon-B was released featuring members of Emperor and Satyricon, with Tveitan on synth. In 1998 Tveitan formed, along with his wife Heidi Tveitan (AKA Ihriel), the more experimental project Peccatum. In 1999 Emperor released IX Equilibrium.
Peccatum would feature his trademark synth sound as well as clean and black vocals. Over the years Peccatum has released five albums and EPs and was Tveitan's main project until the project was ended in early March 2006.

In 2001, the final Emperor album was released. A studio album, Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire & Demise was entirely composed by Tveitan and featured more complex orchestration than previous works. It had significantly less synthesizers than before. It was at this time Emperor mutually decided to dissolve, leaving the band with more time to focus on their side projects.

In December 2002, Ihsahn won the "Notodden Kommunes Kulturpris", a culture prize given by his home city, Notodden, which is populated to about 12,500 inhabitants. He won the prize because he is considered the best-known inhabitant of Notodden, a great musician, a music teacher, and he arranges a lot of concerts for unknown bands. The fact that his band sold more than 500,000 copies was also a reason for getting the prize.

On September 30, 2005, Emperor made a surprise return at Scream magazine's 15-year anniversary party in Oslo at Rockefeller, a rock concert venue. The move was kept top secret, was only known by a handful of people, and they played three songs only. This was to announce the reuniting of the band for a few shows around Europe and America in 2006, namely at Wacken and Inferno Festival.

His first solo album The Adversary was released in April 2006. All work was done by him with the exception of percussion, which was done by Asgeir Mickelson and vocals on the song Homecoming by Kristoffer Rygg of Ulver. It showcases his progressive influences as well as heavy metal, black metal and classical music. The album was recorded at Symphonique Studios in Norway and was released on his label Mnemosyne Productions, which was formed in 2003 with Ihriel. A video accompanies the track "Invocation."

In 2007 he lent his voice to an animated character from the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse, Eric von Wiechlinghammer in the episode "Dethfashion".

As well as being a talented musician, Tveitan is also a capable artist and once considered doing the artwork for a Thou Shalt Suffer album. He presently lives in Notodden, Norway with his wife and family. He also teaches music at the local school.

He exclusively uses Ibanez guitars for recording and performing and he is endorsed by Ibanez. Recently, Ihsahn has begun playing the Ibanez RG2228 8-string guitar and more recently has had a custom RGA8 made specifically for him.

His Guitar World column, Left Hand Path started in the September 2008 issue.

He more recently announced that he will be performing some of his solo material live for the first time on a one off select show in Norway while opening for Opeth in March 2009.

His third solo release After was released in January 2010 via Candlelight Records.

He will appear on the upcoming Devin Townsend solo album Deconstruction as a guest vocalist.